Consumption
by stress
Summary: COMPLETE: It started with a cough and ended with a death. And then there’s everything that happened in between...
1. SARAH

Disclaimer: _The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes._

--

_What we call the beginning is often the end.  
And to make an end is to make a beginning.  
The end is where we start from._

— T.S. Eliot

--

She looks an angel, wearing her finest white nightdress, her dark brown hair fanned out underneath her head. Her skin is pale, so pale that the dirty linens she lays upon are darker than she, and the contrast between her flesh and her hair is striking; only the circles around her eyes are darker than her hair.

Her eyes are closed, adding to this unintentional image of innocence, and she is breathing slowly, her chest rising and falling in rhythm to her sighs. She's sleeping.

It is a fitful sleep at best, but, for the moment, she's at peace. Thin lips, colorless, chapped and cracked, are slightly curved, as if this angel knows that her rest shall not last. Or, perhaps, she's hoping just the opposite, hoping that it will last forever. Eternal slumber.

Despite the winter chill, the window beside her bed is slightly open but she needs no blanket. To her it is warm, and has been for the past few weeks. It's a struggle for her mother to even get her to wear the nightdress and only her lingering semblance of societal expectations keeps her dressed. She's not alone in the small room, though she is as quarantined as it is possible to be in a one room New York apartment, and her parents are trying, needlessly, to preserve her modesty.

There are beads of sweat popping up along her forehead, signs of a fever that will not relinquish its hold. She's not bothered by the slickness and her mother, after reaching for the nearby rag, dots her daughter's brow, removing the feverish damp and leaving behind traces of the tears she can longer pretend are not there.

There are three others in the apartment; three boys that watch the woman dote upon the sleeping angel. One is there because he wants to be there for his mother, another against his mother's wishes and the third… the third wants to say his goodbyes.

He knows how this will end. It started with a cough and it will, he has no doubt, end with a death. Her death.

She's going to die, and he's no stranger to the disease that will kill her. He watched his own waste away while in its vicious clutch and he'll be damned if he watches her be stolen from him, too.

She is oblivious to them all, has not recognized their presence since the evening before when her mother managed to entice her to swallow a few mouthfuls of the richest broth the family could afford. She only opens her eyes when the dark becomes too much for her, only opens her mouth when the coughs come.

The coughs are the worst.

Terrible coughs, filled with blood and mucous, coughs that rack her entire body, making her convulse in agony as she tries to get them under control. Coughs so strong that they cause her breathing to cease as long as they last, robbing her of the few breaths that remain.

The coughs begin slowly and quickly overwhelm the girl; her eyes open revealing dark eyes that are all but swallowed by the dark that outline them. She spares a near silent whimper before the real coughs take her over and she begins to shake. Her mother and the eldest of her two brothers lean in to help support her fragile form, ignoring the desperate, yet weak, way she's clutching at them.

Begging for relief and finding only pity there, she struggles to get through it and, this time, luckily, the fit is not so bad. She's panting now, moaning under her breath as David—she always clings to David the longest—slowly lays her back down on the bed. She offers no fight but simply closes her eyes again before turning, gently, onto her side.

It's so hot, Sarah murmurs tiredly as she lays her head on her pillow and tilts her face upwards so that she can feel the cool February air upon her cheek. So very hot, she says as she wraps her arms around her and, in contrast to her words, begins to shiver.

David says nothing as he leans over and brushes her sweat soaked hair away from her skin before taking his place beside his younger brother. Esther is holding her hands to her bosom in an attempt to keep her grief in, blue eyes rimmed red as she watches her eldest child. Les, with the wonderment of a child, is watching the scene, morbidly fascinated.

And Jack…

Jack's gone. Frantic footsteps echo on the staircase as he makes his flight.


	2. JACK

Disclaimer: _The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes._

--

_Men fear death as children fear to go into the dark;  
and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other._

— Francis Bacon

--

It's cold, and it's damp. The winter white sky has faded to a gloomy grey. There is no sign of the sun, no sign that spring is ready to rear its illustrious head. It's dreary, and it's dismal. And it's lonely.

He's lonely. One of a kind but all alone.

_So that's what you call a family... Father, daughter, mother, son… _

He can no longer find it in himself to intrude on the family's grief. It's become too much for him and he's purposely made himself an outsider. It's too much to watch her mother cry, to watch her father stand over her protectively. Too much to listen to Les ask when she'll be all better, to see the solemn understanding on David's expressionless face that she won't.

Too much… so he runs away. Coward's feet take him back to the only home he's ever known: Duane Street. He doesn't stay long, Kloppman's concerns and the other boy's questions enticing him to hit the street again.

He doesn't know where to go. Of course he could visit Medda down at Irving Hall but he knows that her performances, garish and colorful as they are, will not be enough to dispel his pain so he doesn't even bother. Or, perhaps, he could take a walk over the Bridge and pay a visit to Spot Conlon—but he doesn't do that, either. He could just hear Spot's taunting in his ear already: C'mon, Jacky Boy, that's what happens when you ties yourself to one dame, he'd say, you shoulda known better.

Running, always running. Trying to outrun the whispers, trying to flee the guilt. With an unlit half-rolled cigarette dangling from chapped lips, he runs and he runs.

He always seems to find himself at the place. Close enough but… but not. It's almost as if he can pretend he's the one crying, or watching over her. And, if he strains his ears hard enough, he can hear the sounds of her dying coughs carrying on the wind, lifted up so that, from his perch above her, he can still make them out.

Weeks have passed, and the coughs are growing weaker. Yet, he still finds himself running to the rooftop. It's cold, and it's damp, dreary, dismal. Lonely. But it's his.

For now.

He's sitting up top, his back to the wall, his gaze watching the half-frozen clothes on the line. He sees a skirt up there, faded brown from the barely there sun, and recognizes. It belongs to her, but its place on the line remains. She has no use for skirts and dresses, he knows. Her nightdress, the pure white of an angel's robe, is enough.

It flickers in the wind, the material performing some sort of intricate dance that he barely sees. Though his dark eyes are staring forward, and he looks without really seeing, his attention is captured by the piece of paper in his hand. Dry hands, ink-stained and raw, are exposed to that same winter wind, but they do not feel pain. All they feel is the rough edge of the ticket in his hand.

He never returned that money to Pulitzer. He's a thief, a liar, a rascal, a scamp. He doesn't play by any rules, least of all the rules set forth by an old man who makes more money in a day than he will see in a lifetime. So, he tore off those scabber clothes and left them behind when he rejoined the Newsies Strike of '99, but he didn't leave the money behind.

He ain't smart but, then again, he sure ain't stupid.

It's a one way ticket, good for whenever he wants to use it. It'll take the bearer, it claims, to Santa Fe, courtesy of the Railroad. It was the cheapest ticket the train yards offered, but it's his. And he knows exactly what he wants to do with it.

Dry air's supposed to be good for a cough, he's told.

Footsteps on the rooftop filter in through uncaring ears and he barely spares a glance to their source. For one brief moment, his heart beats in triple-time and he wonders if it's her, if she's well enough to join him on the rooftop again. But it's not, and he knows that. He's fooling himself, always fooling himself, and when he sees the deep blue eyes of David Jacobs looking down on him, he knows everything.

He thought the coughs had been getting weaker…

There's nothing to do now, nothing to wait for, so he slowly rises. And, without a word, he turns and looks at David. His face asks the question for him and David's curt nod is the answer.

Still wordlessly, Jack hands the ticket over to him. Just as silently, David accepts it.

Eyes like the sky flit over the paper, either unable to or just unwilling to comprehend what the words imply. Fingers lose the ability to grasp and the winter wind steals the ticket from the boy. It enjoys the swift ride of the invisible current before hitting the wall and falling to the rooftop's floor.

Jack watched the flight of the paper but does not move. He can hear the purposeful footsteps as they hurry away from him.

He's not the one running this time.

_Ain't ya glad you got a dream called Santa Fe? _


	3. DAVID

Disclaimer: _The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes._

--

_The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. _

— Harriet Beecher Stowe 

--

Sarah is dead.

Jack is gone.

And he pretends he doesn't care.

The kitchen table in the Jacobs' apartment is only half-filled, now. It really hits him when he returns home at night for a quick meal with his parents and his brother—there's no Sarah serving up supper, no Jack eating enough to make up for an absent breakfast and a lunch he'll never know.

Before long, he stops returning for those quick meals. It pains him, sitting to the left side of his mother and watching her try not to cry into her soup; it's a trial, keeping his face straight, expressionless, when his father asks Sarah for a glass of water only to remember that his daughter can no longer answer his calls.

And Les...

He has never been the one that his younger brother idolized. When they were younger, and innocent of all expectations, Les would follow Sarah around, doing what she did while David stood off in a corner somewhere, reading a book.

When they got older and the truths of the day were dumped upon the Jacobs siblings, Les begrudgingly sides with his brother—until that single, summer day in 1899 when he met Jack.

In Jack, Les found a role model.

But Jack's gone now, as is Sarah, and Les is lost.

That's it for him. It hurts the most, watching his brother come to terms with Sarah's death and Jack's departure. He doesn't understand and, eventually, the young boy blames himself.

But he knows the truth. It's not Les's fault—it's his.

He's the one who heard Sarah's pitiful coughing and did not tell his mother, per his sister's request, until it was too late. He's the one who had Jack's train ticket in his hand but did not stop the other boy from boarding the vessel.

It's all his fault.

So he leaves. He runs away. With nothing more than a note that he would be fine, if not free, he flees.

He does not have a set destination in mind when he packs up his old pocket watch and his pennies and leaves that note behind but it's no surprise that, when his feet, blistered and achy, long to stop, he's found himself facing the entrance of the Newsboys' Lodging House on Duane Street.

Staring at it, his blue eyes roving over the building and straying to the worn sign, an idea comes to him. He doesn't want to go home—so he will create a new one. A new life.

No longer the 'Walking Mouth', he can start over. He doesn't have to be Sarah's brother or Jack's Shadow anymore, either. He can be anyone he wants.

His head is up in the air, the faded brown cap slung low. Walking into the lobby of the lodging house, he pauses only once—he places his lodging fare on top of the supervisor's desk, slamming the coppers down on the warped wood with a sense of utter satisfaction.

No one stops him as he marches up the stairs though there are countless boys—many of them nameless, for the newsboys seem the change as the wind blows—that watch him go.

They don't say anything to him but it's almost if he can hear their thoughts. See that fella, they say to each other, he was Jack Kelly's partner. The 'Walkin' Mouth', he led the strike last summer and everythin'. Can ya believe it?

That's what they always say when they see him. He just ignores them.

He doesn't want the memories… not anymore.

He walks into the bunkroom, entering without a word. This is only the third time since he's made it this far into the lodging house, never really having a reason to step into the sleeping quarters before. He sees quite a few of the newsies he recognizes—Racetrack, puffing away on an old cigar, and there's Specs and Bumlets over there—but, still, he says nothing.

His pack is slung over his shoulder and his head is straight as he proceeds his way through the center of the bunkroom. He spies one particular bunk, recognizes it and stops when he reaches its side. It's been weeks since Jack Kelly has left but no one has the nerve to climb into his old bunk.

Until him.

He can feel the eyes of the room's occupants on him as he regards the top bunk critically. He nods a few times—he can hear the collective breath of the boys amid the continual din of the bunkroom—before lifting his pack up and tossing it up top. The hat follows and then he climbs the ladder.

Silently, wordlessly, he glares out into the bunkroom, daring the others to say something—anything—about his action. None of them do.

After all, it was just another bunk.

Before long, that bunk loses the identity of its previous owner. It's not Cowboy's bunk anymore but it does belong to someone. He molds the old, coarse mattress to his shape and leaves a bit of himself behind after every night. It's his now...

It's at night, when all the other boys are sleeping, and he finally can find some peace, that he chooses not to. Feigning sleep, he takes the moment to curse the day the coughing began, to curse the day the train whistle blew. If those wide blue eyes were open, they'd be drowning in tears… but they're not. So the hot, salty tears dribble down his temples, pooling on the stained pillow.

The tears will be gone by morning, as will the emotion. The grief will remain, however. And so will he.

Sarah is dead.

Jack is gone.

David _does _care.

And the kitchen table in the Jacob's apartment has only three seats now.


	4. RACETRACK

Disclaimer: _The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes._

--

_People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true  
immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive.  
It is as though they were traveling abroad._

— Marcel Proust

--

The stub of the three day smoked cigar smells vile and tastes even worse but, still, he puffs on it. There is, he figures, maybe five more minutes worth of stale tobacco left and that means five more minutes of calm. So he continues to puff, puff, puff on it; he needs that calm like a gambler needs that last quarter…

He knows both those cravings all too well.

It's growing warm out, the familiar New York stink rising into the air as winter wanes. It doesn't bother him too much, his sense of smell already failing from countless years of stolen smokes and palmed cigars, and it's a small price to pay to see the back end of the season.

Too much has changed since the summer, far more than he would ever have liked.

He takes one particularly large puff on the cigar out of frustration. He is not a proponent of change; always one to let things be, it's rough knowing that things had changed and there's nothing he can do.

He's got a smart mouth and a quick wit for someone his size. The lodging house had been his home for so many years now that he can't remember what life was like before he stumbled his way into the lobby. He's got the blood of street bred newsboy in him, born to lie, cheat and, beyond all else, sell a damn paper.

By all rights, when Jack left, Manhattan should have been his. Even if the thought had never come to him, even if he never would have known that Jack Kelly really _would _leave, it should have been understood that Manhattan would fall to him.

After all, he'd always been Jack's right hand man. Until…

Another large puff and the cigar is quickly wasting away.

Stubby legs lead him on without any interference from his brain. Whether he knows where he is going or not, his feet aim to take him in a certain direction so he goes.

It's a good thing that he's not afraid of heights.

Now Manhattan's not his, and that's not because it's a living, breathing city without any ties to anyone. It's because the simple ragtag bunch of street boys that embodied the seedier aspects of the city had looked to another leader when their hero boarded a train to Santa Fe and disappeared.

He'd been too late, he knows, he'd hesitated for a beat too long and someone else stepped into the shoes that he so desperately wanted to fill.

David Jacobs is not like him, nothing at all like any of them, but he has the top bunk now. He's the first one on line at the distribution center, the one that the boys listen to.

He imagines the other's face and the emotion it conjures is enough to cause him to inhale deeply. His lungs are burning but he rejoices in the pain. Sometimes it's just good to feel.

And then, as he focuses his inner turmoil—a turmoil hidden by the façade of friendship—his thoughts stray to Jack, always to Cowboy. He's gone, halfway across the country and far out of reach, but he can imagine just what his former friend would have to say if he was still in New York.

Watcha doin', Race, he would ask, an unbelieving grin splitting his face, you gonna let someone else take over? It's New York, we own it.

Maybe Jack had. Maybe now David does.

What is there that he can do?

It has been his very intent to accept David into the lodging house. The loss of Jack, if it had hit him hard, it hit David just the same. The sound of barely stifled cries can be heard at night and, while he's no stranger to the sounds of sorrow, he's even more familiar with the position of Jack's—David's—bunk.

Newsies have to stick together, or they're nothing. But, in the end, David had already taken Jack away from him, capturing the older boy's attention with his summer arrival. Already stumbling from the revelation that Jack was gone forever this time, losing Manhattan to this upstart with a family was too much.

David took Jack from him and now… now he was trying to be Jack.

And he just can't have that.

A cool breeze rises up and wafts the foul scent away. It's a gesture that seems, at the same time, to thin some of the fog that he's been traveling in. There's hurt in his eyes, hurt but a sense of determination, as he removes the dead cigar from between his cracked lips.

He nods and, suddenly—whether it's the spring sun or something else entirely—it's all clear to him.

There's nothing he can do, he believes as he looks over the edge of the bridge he's finally finished crossing. It's a long way down and, with a curl of his lip that has nothing to do with his sense of humor, he flicks the last bit of the cigar over the edge.

It's hard to navigate the cigar end's path into the water but he imagines that he can hear the river swallow it up. It's a dark sound, but a satisfying one. He wonders if, perhaps it's a body that vanishes into the wild water's depths, would the sound be all the more pleasing.

It's not easy being the wise guy, the kid with a big grin on his face and a quip always perching on the tip of his tongue. There's no emotion for a boy like that, no understanding—no sympathy. He's always being underestimated, both in stature and in smarts… but not anymore.

True, with David seamlessly taking the place of Jack, there's nothing that Racetrack can do.

Nothing that _he _can do…

But he knows someone who might, for the right price, be willing to help.


	5. SPOT

Disclaimer: _The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes._

--

_Death is a debt we all must pay. _

— Euripides

--

He stands there, like a God, watching over the hustling bustling city that he believes he created. To him, there was no such thing as Brooklyn before he arrived. Or, rather, there was a Brooklyn but it wasn't _his _Brooklyn. He made it—makes it—what it is by watching over it, watching it, owning it.

If Jack Kelly could be said to own New York, then he owns Brooklyn. From the lodging house on Poplar Street, to the East River, it all belongs to him.

So he stands there, leaning against one of the pillars on the dock, watching his city. And he's thinking.

He looks at peace, no wrinkles marring his street-bronzed tone as he runs previous events through his mind. There's a simple, easy grin on his face but, while it brings out his inherent good looks, it's enough to make any viewer uneasy. It's a dangerous grin, and one he wears often.

It's a grin of a mastermind, a grin of one in control. He knows that, with the simple snap of his fingers, half of Brooklyn's street boy population would be at his very beck and call. They've seen what that one grin, that _smirk_ can do and will do anything to make sure that it doesn't happen to them.

It's still spring by date but the weather seems to have forgotten that fact. It's only midday but already the sun is beating down on them all. Eager for an escape, many of the boys have shed their trousers in favor of a cool dip in the river.

But not him.

He's watching and he's thinking, doing both at the same time while giving neither hint nor sign as to what he is doing. For all intents and purposes, as he lifts his head up in vain to catch at a stray breeze, he's just one of the boys, trying his best to escape the early heat.

Only not.

He's not like them, he's better than them. Half their size but double their ingenuity, their cunning… their brains, he controls everything. Even the cops around think twice before nodding at the boy; they see the cane strapped under his vivid red, his blood red suspenders, and they tip their cap. They recognize power when they see it, they known that that skinny boy with the mop of sandy hair is Brooklyn walking.

He's thinking about Manhattan.

Ya gotta help me, Racetrack had said, Jack's gone but Dave's tryin' to take over. It ain't right, but I gotta plan and I need your help, Brooklyn. Hell, I'll even pay ya.

If there's one thing that he knows, it's how much money is worth.

It's not that he's greedy for how can one desire what he never had. No, he's not greedy. He's practical.

Money, as they say, makes the world go round and he believes it. Jack Kelly may have thought that it was the newsies who had power, the power of the press, but he didn't buy it. If they had the power then why were they risking life and limb for a mere tenth of a cent? If they had the power then why did they live in a lodging house, odorous bodies piled on top of each other, rather than living in a mansion?

Money gave you power and, if you already had power, then money made you invincible.

He would do it, he would help Racetrack, but it wasn't just for the money. Racetrack's a gambler, an unlucky boy who, on a good day, had two coppers to rub together.

And it's not because he's a nice guy because… well, he's not.

He's going to do it because, in the end, it would help him to help Racetrack. When Jack unofficially headed the Manhattan boys, there was an understanding between the two boroughs. Jack respected Brooklyn and its diminutive leader. They were allies.

Not the 'Walking Mouth', though. He knows hidden power when he sees it and he's not prepared to face a challenger. From what Racetrack disclosed, David Jacobs was quickly unearthing that power. He had moved from his family's apartment to the lodging house; he was quickly taking Jack's place.

It's not like he doesn't like David. Maybe if they had come from similar circumstances, they could have been friends. He recognizes a bit of himself in the Jewish boy though, of course, he would never admit it.

But, the truth is, they _are _different. While David prefers to talk, he prefers to fight. All the smarts in Jacobs' head comes from books, but everything he learned was from a life on the street.

In so many ways, the two boys could be the exact opposites and, because of that, he can not let David succeed Jack. Racetrack, he knows, will be the pawn he needs to keep the relations between Manhattan and Brooklyn the same until it no longer benefits him to have a peaceful alliance.

He sighs and crossed his arms over his small chest as one of his boys makes a splash into the river. His mind is still whirring, plans are thought up and discarded as he tries to figure out how he will adapt Racetrack's idea and add his own personal touch to it.

There's one thing that he knows, though. Whatever that plan will involve, someone is going to get hurt.

After all, Spot Conlon did not become one of the most feared newsies in New York by _talking_.


	6. LES

Disclaimer: _The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes._

--

_Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life,  
their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star,  
and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life._

— John Muir

--

He acts an angel, smiling warmly at his mother and trying his best to do everything that he's told. He's only ten years old but the tragedy his family has known—if it can be considered tragedy and just not living—has prematurely aged him. Without his sister or his brother to protect him, he's no longer the baby. He's quickly, and maybe unwillingly, becoming a man.

There's no Sarah, there's no David, there's no Jack but, yet, he still wears a smile. There are tears in his eyes, running down a dirt-stained cheek, but he smiles because his mother needs it. Wordlessly, she asks him for it, pleads with him for it.

It's too much for him.

He's still a child at heart and he doesn't understand why everyone is leaving him. He tried to ask his mother once, shortly after David took his leave at the end of the harsh, cruel winter, but his words did nothing but return the tears to Esther's once bright blue eyes as the woman embraced her youngest son.

Don't leave me, she murmured and he, held too tight to answer her, only nodded into her soft, reassuring bosom.

But a boy can not remain locked up in an apartment forever so, when she finally lets him get out to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather, he promises in that earnest, innocent way of the child that he will return. He loves his mama, he loves his papa. He doesn't want to leave—what else is left for him out there, now that his siblings and his hero are gone?

He's a good boy, but he is too trusting. On his first outing, he tried to find his brother, to ask him to come home. And, when David only sends his brother away, he holds to the belief that David must have a reason to remain at the lodging house, without him, far from his family.

Perhaps he's holding on to Jack's place until he returns, he believes, or maybe he's trying to earn enough money that it's easier to stay with the newsboys rather than live at home.

Innocence can be a blinder and, as he does what his brother says and leaves him be, it can also be a burden.

Beyond anything else, it can be dangerous.

The air is hot and sticky but the youth doesn't feel it. The sweat collects on his brow but an absent-minded hand wipes at it as he makes his way down the street. It's an awkward step, a half run, half walk kind of gait that helps him amble his way through the afternoon crowds.

There's a new, shiny red marble clutched happily between his fingers and a peaceful, _innocent _smile on his face as he heads towards Duane Street. He knows that David has warned him to stay away but Tumbler wants to play marbles so he goes.

And, if he happens to catch a glimpse of his brother in the meantime, that's all the better for him. His father has been imploring him to repeat his request to David; his parents want their eldest boy home, so he won't stop trying.

He's ten years old, with the weight of the world resting on his shoulders—and, because he can't do anything else, he smiles about it.

He's still smiling when two large boys confront him, appearing out of nowhere, and striking just as quickly.

--

Their intent had been to send a simple message, to right the wrong that had occurred when Jack Kelly left and David Jacobs tried to fill his shoes.

But a message can sometime be lost in translation, and this simple message turned into a dire warning with one altogether too rough push.

In the end, it's jealousy and blame that are contagious and revenge that can be all consuming.

_Consuming… _

At least, when Les's small crumpled body hits the street with a thud, an angel dressed all in white is there to welcome him with open arms and a safe and loving smile.

* * *

Author's Note: _Well, that's that. It started out as a way for me to express my own personal grief and, after six quick chapters and the month it took to write it, _Consumption _is complete. It was an excercise, definitely unlike most of the fiction in this section, and something that even I can't explain. To be honest, most of this short ficlet was written in a fog, done in short spurts on creative whims, and it doesn't make much sense to me -- and I wrote it. __But it started with a cough and it ended with a death, and now the story is done._

_I would like to offer my deepest thanks to anyone who read this. It's always such a pleasure to receive feedback on my writing, especially when it's something that I was very hesitant to show anyone. All I can ask is that any one reading it enjoyed it._


End file.
